Lona: Realm Of Colors funded, very beautiful

If artist Taraneh Karimi is following the advice to write what she knows, then someone needs to rescue her from the inside of a painting. Lona: Realm Of Colors [official site] is a strikingly beautiful-looking game that mixes point-and-click adventure with colouring in, to explore themes of fear and chaos. And it just got itself funded on Kickstarter before I could get around to writing about it.Strongly influenced by Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki, Lona is about a girl who paints to escape from her troubles, literally. It’s an adventure that aims to shift from “fetch puzzles and dialogue”, instead “focusing on art and narration”, although I’m not entirely sure what that would look like. Of course, it would look a lot like this:

I’m always intrigued to see people meddling with the point-and-click as a concept, and equally pleased when concept art is brought to the fore, so I’ve been interested enough to back the project. Whether either can coalesce into an interesting game remains to be seen. SpaceFox are hoping to launch Lona in August 2018. Stretch goals include a mobile version, and then a bonus level featuring art design from Raphael Lacost, Assassin’s Creed’s art lead.